Local government waste management is emerging as a test case of the governmentâ€™s genuine commitment to localism. Over the weekend, plans by the Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman,Â to rein in local authorities who charge for waste, suggest a low level of tolerance for local action and little belief in the power of local people to hold those authorities to account for their actions.

The same can be said of the Communities and Local Government Secretaryâ€™s return to the charge on alternate weekly collection (aka emptying the bins every fortnight.) As such, they suggest a very weak commitment to real localism (and a very loose reading of the normal moratorium on new government announcements during the pre-election period.)

Down in the dumps

It is hard not to feel for local government over waste management. They are caught in a vice:

the landfill tax escalator is raising the price they pay for waste

they have to freeze council tax

the UK still needs dramatically to cut waste sent to landfill â€“Â to meet the looming targets in the EU Landfill directive and avoid hefty infraction fines.

But the government seems determined, apparently because of high profile campaigns run by national newspapers, to impose the targets and the taxes on local government, but deny them means of managing the problem.

The last government, at the request of local government, included discretionary powers to charge for waste in the Climate Change Act. Pilots were set to go ahead with volunteer authorities â€“ but abandoned before the election when the volunteer local authorities pulled out.Â Post-election, the first milestone on theÂ Defra structural reform plan was to remove those powers from the statute book.

Can you trust them with the bins?

The rationale for these moves is that local authorities are “charging through the back door” â€“ though they are hardly hidden charges given the amount of publicity they are generating.

But rather than clamp down on errant local authorities, surely a localist government that has included aÂ general power of competence in itsÂ Localism Bill, should be encouraging experimentation and diversity â€“ and local people to boot out councils that get the political judgement wrong (possibly even boosting the salience of local issues and local election turnout.)

It is difficult to square all this with Greg Clark’s six steps of decentralisation that include lifting the burden of bureaucracy and strengthening local accountability.

Indeed to quote the minister himself, “Our public services have suffered because of bureaucratic micro-management by the centre… with people feeling they have little or no control. The Coalition government is determined to redress the balance through a radical shift of power from the centre to citizens and communities.”

Fine words, but if you canâ€™t trust local government with the bins then it begs the questions what exactlyÂ can you trust them with?

The role of Whitehall

The bigger story here is the role of Whitehall in a more devolved world. For the moment, the government appears to not have its story straight on this point and different departments are trying different approaches.

In ‘System stewardship’, Â part of our forthcoming report on policy making, we stress the importance of government being clear on the role central government as devolution is ramped up.Â One of the factors is the “appetite for divergence”.

Government is currently demonstrating a very low appetite in what is a longstanding local service with clear local accountability mechanisms. It does not augur well for the more difficult devolutions of power to come.

Further information

Read our report on the future of policy making in a decentralised world: System Stewardship

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Comments (3)

From a waste perspective local authorities are caught between a rock and a hard place as they are tied into their PFI contracts for 25 years or more. Looking to the future this will result in contracts not producing the most sustainable options in terms of utilising waste as a resource or reducing amounts to landfill.

Another point that I think is of note is that waste collection is often the one area where the â€˜publicâ€™ measure their opinions of their local authorities. I think the Tories canâ€™t help themselves but interfere.

I notice that Cameron has been quick to deny the conflict between waste policy and localism:

It is hard to avoid cynicism about the government’s muddled approach to localism. It is too reminiscent of the early 1980’s when early support for localism degenerated quickly into rate capping, poll tax and compulsory competitive tendering. Worryingly there are similarities in the rhetoric too with finger pointing at the need to deal with a minority of irresponsible local authorities already emerging as it did before.

It is time for more critical attention to be given to the monster Localism Bill. It’s length is militating against proper scrutiny – it’s breadth leaves many unsure how to assimilate the many different policy elements and most public commentary has focused on the implications for the planning process because there is at least there a coherent interest group capable of offering a critique.

Local autonomy needs supportive financial mechanisms – the proposals on this subject so far seem potentially very damaging.

[…] Such flexibility is certainly needed for, while little in it is new, the open public services white paper’s aims are remarkably ambitious. As the paper partly acknowledges, there are big questions to work through. Will the public really allow school or hospital closures, which are the natural consequences of increased reliance on public sector markets? Can government work out ways of paying providers for the results they achieve, even in areas (such as reoffending rates) where outcomes are hard to measure, difficult to put a value on and affected by a wide range of factors (such as wider crime rates) that are beyond the service providers control? And will ministers be able to resist the temptation to intervene in policy areas that no longer fall entirely within their purview? […]